A JAMAICAN CHILDHOOD - HAVING FUN AND GAMES AND....

The rather bleak view from Shaka's home, of where Janga Gully used to be

Like children growing up anywhere in the world, playing and having fun was what Shaka wanted and enjoyed most in his childhood. He might not have realised it at the time, but playing and having fun, and, yes, suffering pain as well, was all essential aspects of the learning process. Shaka can recall playing with his younger brother under the elevated foundation of their house, where they would resort to using spiders and ants as their version of cows, goats and pigs.

During his childhood Shaka was very close to his younger brother, and would spend a lot of his time playing with him and going for exploratory walks along the course of the Janga Gully and the more accessible parts of the Johnson River, to the grass fields and woodlands on the neighbouring Spring property, playing cricket, using home-made bats and young oranges, grapefruits and civil oranges as the ball. They would go to the woods to find fire wood, without which no cooking could be done. Even looking after and feeding, catching and putting up the family's chickens at nights, were fun and enjoyable activities, more often than not.

Shaka also enjoyed the adverture of spending time exploring the banks of the eroded banks of Janga Gully, looking for the nests of Robins, that dug holes in the banks to make their nest. He can also recall times when hundreds of colour butterflies could be seen eating the nectar of rotten ripe mangoes which had fallen off nearby mango trees. When flights of birds would descent on the mango trees when the fruits were ripening, to eat them, and would, themselves, become targets for him and the other boys who would hunt them with sling-shots.

At other times, Shaka would be playing with other siblings and friends. Shaka recalled that they would spend time playing cricket, base ball, hide and seek, racing with one another, telling jokes and duppy stories, going night fishing with kerosene oil lamps – which were home made, with oil being placed in an empty narrow necked bottle, which would then be corked with a rolled up paper wick, which protruded a few centimetres outside of the bottle, to provide light when it was lit – go on picnic to and swimming in Johnson River, stealing fruits from local villagers, and sugar cane from the nearby Surge Island Sugar cane fields, and going to the surrounding hills to look for mangoes and fire wood.


Shaka recalled that it was on one of these praedial excursion to the then Serge Island sugar cane fields that he was given probably the most frightening experience in his childhood; probably except for the constant, but at times subconscious fear of going to Hell, if you break any of the Ten Commandments.

To be continued